A Painting of a Tomato
by InvaderKap
Summary: A long time after the events of Kirby 64, Adeleine comes across a stranger with certain undeniably familiar traits. Rated T for expression of depressing thoughts and possibly serious injury.
1. Chapter 1: The Pinkish Visitor

Disclaimer: The characters in this chapter do not belong to me, nor does the setting; however, the events that follow with these characters in this setting during this chapter all belong to me, except any events that occur in any media that was already created by Nintendo before this chapter was written.

Chapter 1: The Pink-ish Visitor

It was a bright winter afternoon on Pop Star. The snow glistened in the sun, and the occasional snowflake that yet fell from the wildly burning sky would melt away, projecting a miniature rainbow through its crystals. All the waddle-dees were safely tucked away in their waddle-dee homes, staring out at the splotches of periwinkle that painted the great orange sky while sitting comfortably in their waddle-dee chairs and sipping hot waddle-dee cocoa, and some of the young waddle-dees would see the white stuff outside and head off to Mama Dee's room scratching their round head-bodies as to what the stuff was.

Outside the comfort of home walked a young, brunette, notably short human in a deep red hat with the seeming of the top half of an apple, a semi-baggy green polo shirt, a short black dress that seemed to ripple, and a long, black, thick coat with art supplies sticking out. She trudged heavily through the snow, her feet sinking as she struggled to carry an easel taller than herself that contained a vibrant painting of a tomato. With a final gasp, she plopped herself down against a tree, planting the exhaustingly heavy easel into the snow. Not particularly wanting to stand back up, she reached up to the easel and pulled down the canvas, then placed it into her lap. Reaching into her coat pocket, she felt around for her paint bottles. She laid them out in the snow, reached behind her canvas to pull out a palette and paintbrush, squirted some red, yellow, green, and white out onto her palette, and began to paint.

The paintbrush dipped into the white paint and swished across a spot on the tomato, creating a sort of shine that truly blended quite well with the sunlight in her actual environment; it then dipped into the green and carefully created a wild trail from the top of the tomato that all at once seemed to become apparent as a vine extending in a swirly pattern across the canvas. Admiring her work for a moment, the human realized one last thing missing. Her face straightened back to complete focus, eyes squinting like little beads to get a clearer glance at her project, and with a graceful swipe of her brush, she…

Completely destroyed her creation.

The snow stopped falling and the wind stopped blowing. It was as though time had stopped entirely. She had sent hours, _hours_ trying to capture the elusive maxim tomato perfectly by memory alone, and a single swipe of her paintbrush, just one little misplaced paint splatter, had extended itself disgustingly across the canvas and irreparably defaced her was-to-be-masterpiece. This always happened. It happened with her last piece, when she was painting His Majesty, King Dedede, in a suit of armor. It happened with the piece before that, when she was trying to capture the joy experienced mutually between a young cappy and a frog at the beach. And now it was happening again. It could only be fate, she decided as she stared emptily at her painting, feeling her rage dissipate to a cold, dense sorrow. She wasn't _meant_ to get it right. She was just a pawn, destined for failure for someone else's sake. She slumped down further into the snow. Suddenly, it was much colder outside than it had been before. It felt as though a freezing wind was then blowing through the trees. _Fwoosh._ They were shaking. Shaking with her sorrow, her fear, her anger. _WhoooshPlop._ Dropping lumps of snow that were sitting on them before.

An especially large lump of snow dropped in the human's lap.

She looked down at her lap, not for a moment wondering about her purpose. "Of course," she said aloud to herself, slowly drooping her head into the pile of snow on her lap. "So _this_ is my fate: to be a landing pad for a pile of snow."

"Poyo...," replied the lump of snow sadly.

Wait a minute here.

The human could do naught but sit there in the snow, staring up close at the lump of snow that had just, of all things that snow might do, or rather almost certainly would _not_ do, opened up its mouth, or at least someone's or something's mouth somewhere, and _spoken_ to her. Furthermore, this large snowball's mouth, or at least the mouth out of which it spoke, possessed or at least had emitted the very voice, the very infantile, unintelligible uttering, of a baby, and the particular variety of the voice of a baby that seemed to be manifested in this voice was most akin to…

Kirby...?

She felt her heart lifting from the pit of her stomach up into the pale blue clouds. It didn't matter anymore that her painting was ruined or that it wasn't snowing or that a cold wind was practically blowing over all the trees, because whatever the case may have been, Kirby was almost certainly inside of that lump of snow. Surely, her old friend had been sleeping peacefully up in the tree, blanketed by snow; naturally, he would have fallen out when the wind blew so very hard and cold, as would anyone. She hadn't seen Kirby in... well, practically forever. This was good. This was wonderful. Frantically, she dug through the snow, eager to see the happy little puffball smiling up at her. "Poyo!" called Kirby excitedly from inside the snow, surely awaiting the sight of his friend.

What slowly emerged from the snow was very different from what the young painter had expected. Shaking off the cold, white powder, what seemed to be a bundle of clothing climbed up out of the human's lap.

"Kirby?" said the painter to the lump of clothes, beginning to accumulate doubt. Last she checked, he didn't tend to wear clothes; it was a bit illogical for him to be covered in clothes unless they were someone else's. Yes, that must've been it. He must've gotten into someone's clothing because it smelled like food or something. What a very... very Kirby-ish thing to do. There was simply no other way to describe it.

"Kirby," she laughed, "you little monkey, you! Did you really just--" The girl's humorous musings were cut off as she saw the pile of clothes grow to reveal that it was not a pile of clothes at all, but what was slowly transforming into a human shape facing away from her that became more and more clear in form as she watched on in awe. The slowly rising stranger cast a vaguely ominous shadow that floated over the luminous white crystals on the ground. The girl's fear and awe boiled down to a repetitive agony. The being just kept growing; despite it still being smaller than her, she couldn't help but wonder whether the mystery of just how big it would grow would ever end.

Naturally, she found it somewhat of an exasperating relief when she saw the being stop growing when it was about her own size.

The stranger slowly turned toward the young painter, and she wondered if he had a sword or maybe a gun. Maybe he was going to kill her. She was going to die and her life was still meaningless. It just couldn't get any worse.

"Poyo!" interjected the new human happily, turning toward the painter to reveal a particularly androgynous and cheerful human being, complete with a thick pink hoodie, pink cargo shorts, pink slippers that vaguely resembled bunny rabbits, and a childlike face with bright blue eyes and a fascinated sort of smile that seemed to reflect a certain absence of any understanding whatsoever.

Comprehending her obvious psychological folly, the painter could barely contain herself. It would have been rude to laugh at the young man, but it was hard to resist after seeing such a humorous sight. Imagine that, a young man in nothing but pink. Honestly, _pink! _And to think that she thought this clearly harmless boy was going to kill her. How foolish!

"Poyo?" inquired the stranger confusedly, watching the familiar fellow restrain her laughter with the palms of her hands, allowing oodles of giggles to leak out. The painter could imagine him wondering just what in the world she could be laughing about.

"S-sorry," stuttered the painter between hysterical exhalations. More closely examining the stranger's clothes, she saw that he seemed to be a foreigner... From Aqua Star, perhaps? The cotton lining of the hoodie seemed to be a giveaway.

"Are you lost?" she asked. Aqua Star was quite a ways away; to get to it, one had to go by Rock Star. Anyone who had come from Aqua Star all the way to humble little Pop Star couldn't _possibly_ have done so intentionally.

"Poyo...?" The boy seemed incredibly confused, tilting his head to the left as though to let his brain fall to that side of his skull to better process the strange language. The language must have been new to him, decided the painter; she recalled that people on different stars have very different languages. The Aqua Star language seemed very similar to the infantile babblings of her old friend, Kirby. What she couldn't decide was whether this meant that Kirby was more knowledgeable than she thought or that members of Aqua Star were really freaking stupid.

Come to think of it, there seemed to be a lot of things about this stranger that were parallels to things about Kirby.

"Hey, my name's Adeleine," the painter said to the Kirby-esque stranger, shaking his hand. "Let's be friends, okay?" She knew that it probably didn't mean anything to him, but she hoped that her meaning would get through clearly anyway.

"Poyo!" The newly-befriended stranger cried out in what seemed nothing short of pure joy and leapt unrestrainedly toward Adeleine, throwing his arms around her and knocking her to the ground. "Whoa, hey!" laughed Adeleine. Her many short-lived, futile attempts to break free of the sudden hug, constituted of rolling about in the snow helplessly, did naught but bring the boy along with them. What a strange manner of greeting, thought Adeleine. What with all the water around, it was difficult for her to imagine how people on Aqua Star could well survive such a greeting without being pushed over the edge of their island and falling into the ocean, but she put the thought out of her mind; what was the point, after all, of ruining a good time with trivial pondering? That day alone, she'd already gone through depression, hope, doubt, horror, angst, and laughter just to get to joy; she ought to have been appalled at herself to so easily begin to lose that position of joy for which she'd worked so hard, but she was having too much fun to be appalled at anything, really.

In-between a few attempts to break free, Adeleine was all but certain that she saw, out of the very corner of her eye, a spherical figure darker than shade standing completely still in a distant tree, partially concealed by its leaves. The figure's cape seemed to flow gracefully behind it in a nonexistent wind.

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If anyone is reading this, I very much encourage them to review it; I could use some advice.


	2. Chapter 2: Enter Meta Knight

Disclaimer: The characters in this chapter do not belong to me, nor does the setting; however, the events that follow with these characters in this setting during this chapter all belong to me, except any events that occur in any media that was already created by Nintendo before this chapter was written.

Chapter 2: Enter Meta Knight; an Unexpected Recollection of Past Events

The elastic navy-blue puffball stared out at Adeleine from behind his heavy steel mask as the two played catch with a snowball. It hopped between the two humans' hands like a hot potato. Just what exactly, wondered the ball, was this stranger? It certainly seemed human, but something inside him said otherwise...

"It's a monster." A voice awoke within the circular knight, surging from his right hand deep into his mind. "Adeleine is in danger." The ball clutched his glowing, toothed sword tightly, using his left hand to rake the remaining leaves out of the way of his vision to get a better look. A monster... What exactly could His Majesty have wanted with Adeleine? She never hurt anyone. Could it be because... she was affiliated with Kirby? No, that couldn't have been it; last time they saw one another, King Dedede was working _with_ them, not against them. His Majesty was a simple man; if people helped him, he liked them, and if people hurt him, he disliked them. It didn't matter with whom else they did or didn't hang out. Perhaps... because she painted his portrait poorly? No, that couldn't have been it, either; it was a fairly good portrait even after the mistake, even considering His Majesty's tastes. Could it have been... No, not that, either... Could it-- No... Maybe it-- Probably not... Maybe--

"You're a star warrior," reminded the sword, breaking the puffball's train of thought. "It's your duty to help her."

Right, then.

The ball leapt down gracefully from the tree, completing two full rotations of his spherical body in a somersault-ish direction and landing weightlessly, his feet ceasing even to sink into the snow. "Monster," he called, glancing in a hostile manner in the direction of the stranger.

The snowball that had been tossed at the boy a moment ago flew to his feet and landed predictably in the snow beside him, exploding into a mess of cold, powdery crystals. It wasn't a good sign; once the snowball landed, the game was over. It was time to face reality.

"Poy--" The young man turned away from his post at which he had been catching the snowball and faced the ball. "Poyo!"he cried in response, hopping excitedly and waving. Even if the fellow knew the ball, something just didn't seem right. Adeleine wasn't certain of the identity of the metal-clad ball standing before them, but he didn't look particularly friendly, especially with that glowing, toothed sword in his right hand. It seemed sort of like it would be a mistake to say anything to the blue puff, and much more so to offer something so strange and ambiguous as a mere "poyo." Maybe the ball would overlook it... Right? Sure, he had to. A snowflake drifted by and landed upon the painter's eyelid, and so her impulse was to blink in order to rid herself of the irritation.

The moment she closed her eyes, she heard footsteps, a sound like two lumps of flesh colliding, and a sound like something heavy hitting the ground all at once, and it occurred to her that maybe blinking hadn't been the best idea. She wanted to keep her eyes closed so that she didn't have to see what happened. Bravely, she willed open her tight eyelids, and laying beside her on the ground, eyes wide with horror, shivering all over, was her new friend, and standing on top of the poor guy, right around his abdomen, was the swift, ominous ball, the tip of his toothy blade resting ever-so-gently against his opponent's throat.

"I will release you if you promise not to cause harm to anyone," proposed the ball, pushing his knife forward so that it just barely penetrated the boy's skin.

"P-poyo..."

The ball stared through his mask into the blue eyes of the being, searching for signs that his suspicion was true. The boy was a monster, surely; he could tell that much. However, something was different. He was wearing nothing but pink. The ball could see that quite clearly. He'd said "poyo" several times, a phrase shared by all anatomically undeveloped monsters, implying possibly that he was a baby. Yet stranger was the manner in which he had stated "poyo," the emotions he'd conveyed with the phrase; either they knew one another somehow or the monster was simply very friendly.

A pink, friendly baby monster...

The ball carefully drew his sword away from the boy's throat. Adeleine sighed and let her eyelids, which had been frozen open, fall over her eyes; she let her head, frozen upwards, droop down. She felt as though a weight had been lifted from her heart that had been making it beat faster. So her friend wasn't going to die. Okay. Okay, she could relax. Sort of. Maybe. Okay, she wasn't relaxed. But at least her friend wasn't going to die.

"Adeleine."

Adeleine looked up at the ball in response, too afraid to say anything. She wanted to ask what the ball wanted with her friend. She wanted to ask why the ball knew her name. There was a lot she wanted to ask, but she didn't want to be stepped on and stabbed in the throat in a split second.

"Do you remember the night when Kirby disappeared?"

Adeleine nodded; she remembered all too well.

The ball reached down gently to the human's face, brushing his pink hair out of his eyes. What could it mean? Why would he end up this way? Most importantly, whose work was it, wondered the ball, to get him this way? Who on any of the stars in this entire universe would have motivation to... To...

"Never mind," announced the ball as he hopped off of the human, sheathing his sword. "Sorry to bother you." With that, the ball hopped back into the tree from which he came, leaving not even a trace of a footprint in the snow, and leapt gracefully across the branches of other trees, heading what Adeleine assumed must have been West based on the fact that it was where the sun was setting. Or maybe that was just Mr. Bright _pretending_ to be the sun. It wasn't like there was really any way of knowing.

A long time ago (or rather a short time ago that seemed like forever), a small group, consisting of Kirby, Adeleine, His Majesty, a young fairy in a red winter coat who was called Ribbon, and a wandering waddle-dee who no-one knew quite so far as even his name, had collaborated to defeat an impossibly huge eyeball-esque monster known as 02, who had been in the habit of taking over people's bodies through the shards of the broken Power Crystal that had once guarded the not-so-distant, ever-jolly Ripple Star from harm. Throughout the adventure, the five of them had traversed the entire hypersolar system, all six stars, and all five of them knew each star quite well: Pop Star, Rock Star, Aqua Star, Neo Star, Shiver Star, and Ripple Star all orbited clockwise in the same orbit around the center of the system, a black hole that had been knocked out of the system by 02 and turned into Dark Star. The stars still orbited around the point that Dark Star once occupied, even though it was destroyed in the process of defeating 02. After the quintet defeated 02, they returned to Ripple Star to celebrate with the Queen. Despite the situation having been so grave, they all had a lot of fun because they were working together.

After the celebration, though, all the fun stopped. Everything was back to normal. In fact, Adeleine could have sworn it got worse. King Dedede couldn't play any longer; he had a country to rule, and the unchristened waddle-dee who had once accompanied them was offered a high-paying job as a minion of His Majesty and took the job very enthusiastically. Ribbon had to go back to Ripple Star because she couldn't live with the residual fear that the Power Crystal would be broken again and she wouldn't be around to fix it. Art class had been canceled due to funding issues. All Adeleine's human friends had decided they didn't like her because she lost to a pink marshmallow in a fight, even though she was under control by 02. She tried not to let it all phase her; so much for those guys being "friends," she told herself; I can just take art class later when they make enough money, she said; His Majesty was mean, anyway; she didn't even know the waddle-dee's name, even, so it didn't matter if they couldn't hang out; Ribbon was just one person gone who mattered, so it was okay; Kirby was just a baby, and he probably never really even had enough life experience to be able to tell she was even alive, so, well, so much for him. She thought of every excuse she could fathom to be optimistic; hey, at least she had a roof over her head; at least the world was saved; at least she was _alive_; but she just couldn't cover up the fact that it _hurt_ not having anyone around. She'd rather be homeless, in serious danger, or even dead if it meant being with those people. But this, _this_ was just torture.

Despite her efforts, over the years, Adeleine had become secluded, lonely. She'd let her once-carefree spirit descend into a darkness so profound that sometimes she had to wonder whether or not 02 had come back and taken over her body again. It made sense; her sadness controlled her. Any thought with any essence of lightheartedness was instantly banished from her mind, leaving her trapped in a small bubble of light in a world of shadow; soon, even that bubble of light popped, and she was just falling. Nobody wanted to talk to her or even be near her; in the minds of cappies and waddle-dees throughout the galaxy, she was the girl who'd been possessed by a giant eyeball and tried to hurt everyone's favorite pink cream puff, the girl who never showed up to help anyone except to give Kirby a healthy snack or a hint as to how to find the next crystal shard. Not to mention the girl who nowadays did nothing but sit around in corners and under trees and paint alone. Even Kirby had run away from her. Even Kirby, the innocent little puffball who loved everyone, had run away from her like a small ice monster from a hungry Fire Lion. Nobody likes someone who falls eternally through darkness without a bubble of light to guide them. Nobody likes a traitor, especially a lonely, useless traitor.

"Poyo..."

Adeleine felt a poking sensation in her shoulder, bringing her back to reality; her new friend was standing before her with an almost perfectly round snowball in his hand, pulling his finger away from her and bearing a sad and somewhat hesitant expression on his face that seemed along with the snowball to propose for him that the two of them put aside their problems and continue playing together. It was almost like he'd forgotten that they were both almost killed. Hey, no sense lingering on the past. Just because some guy in a mask showed up with a sword and tried to kill us but then left without telling us anything doesn't mean we have to be too scared to play catch, right?

Adeleine smiled and walked backwards, preparing herself to catch the snowball. As the snowball came flying toward her, she knew that no matter what everyone said, the past didn't matter unless it was the same as the present. The snowball flew up past the side of her head; she spun about and tossed her arm in the air, gracefully catching the snowball and returning it to the other human. She'd been changed. 02 and its dark matter didn't have control over her anymore. She was a free human being.

* * *

Sorry such a lame chapter took so long to make. I've been ill and sleep-deprived; my creativity may thus be impaired.


	3. Chapter 3: The Puppet's Lost Master

Disclaimer: The characters in this chapter do not belong to me, nor does the setting; however, the events that follow with these characters in this setting during this chapter all belong to me, except any events that occur in any media that was already created by Nintendo before this chapter was written. If they have occurred in any media that was already created by Nintendo before this chapter was written, any aspect of the manner in which they occurred in the context of them occurring that was not present in said context in any article of media that was already created by Nintendo before this chapter was written belongs to me instead of the actual event. This rule applies not only to aspects, but to aspects of aspects, aspects of aspects of aspects, etc, etc. This disclaimer also applies to any previous chapters that did not feature it in its entirety.

Chapter 3: The Puppet's Lost Master; Operation Rooftop

The fluffy clouds seemed to pulsate with a sort of happiness. It was distinct from the assertive state of life, but not quite dead. The battle being waged between the warmth of the sun and the cool grass over control of the inattentive monster's body temperature came off as nothing more to it than a wave of peaceful equilibrium and a welcomed barrage of bright sunlight. So much for "Dark Star," thought the monster as it leaned back into the grass and let its eyes fall shut. Whoever decided to name it that was clearly being either sarcastic or very spoiled. This was much better than whatever paradise could possibly be. It was almost too good to be true.

"D'oh!" As consciousness slowly returned to the noddy, it found itself somewhere in a space void-like both in light, temperature, and pressure, as though it were diving deep into a lake of ice at midnight. It felt a mysterious force holding it by its foot, and since the noddy seemed to be pulling away from the force, it presumed that it was upside-down. The absence of a blanket made its surroundings seem very cold, and the absence of a pillow gave it a headache. Worse yet, its surroundings had darkened to a light so dim that it could barely see a thing. "Remind me," it muttered, grimacing, "never to consider something 'too good to be true.'"

"Pleasant dreams, I presume?" replied a seemingly disembodied voice.

Shit! An intruder. The noddy gasped in all the air it could find and held its breath nervously, quickly assessing the situation; the voice was coming from a place that the noddy would have thought was below it, but was clearly above it if it was upside-down; the voice was familiar, carrying an amused and generally benevolent tone with a tad of falsehood; the falsehood was probably intended as a means of lulling people into false senses of security.

But who on Dark Star tries to lull people into false senses of-- Oh, right.

"Jeez, Customer Service," pleaded the noddy groggily. "Don't sneak up on me like that. Can't I sleep a little longer?"

The now-identified Customer Service felt around for a lightswitch. Nothing on the back wall, he determined in a matter of seconds, owing to the compact nature of the minion rooms. He checked the left wall. Nothing there, either-- Ah, here's one.

The lights flashed on, almost blinding the noddy, and as it stared up into the purple, wrinkly, human-like, geekiness-ridden, tall-jawed face of the monster that held it hanging helplessly by its foot, it almost couldn't tell whether it was being blinded by the light or by the ugliness of the being before it.

"Sorry, but we need all personnel right away," apologized the monster emptily, apathetically dropping the noddy on the ground to free his human-like arms.

"Aw, come on, who wakes people up in the middle of the night?" asked the noddy sleepily, not really appreciating the gesture. "Just another half-hour..."

"I'm fairly certain that it's, let's see..." Customer Service pulled up his deep-purple suit sleeve to look at a circular ticking thing on a band; it was probably a watch, but the noddy knew well that with Customer Service, you could never be certain. "3:15 PM. Hardly night-time."

"Wha... It sure doesn't feel like 3:15 PM..." The noddy sat back against the foot of its bed and yawned.

"Yes, well, time hardly ever feels the way it really is." Customer Service returned the yawn; he, too, had gotten up that morning far earlier than he'd wanted to. Lots of calls to answer, after all, mostly complaint calls. He hated complaint calls. "Hey, listen, Sir Nightmare is missing. I'm gathering everyone to go find him. Would you like to get up now?"

Nigh... The noddy tried to understand what it had just heard. Nightm...

Nightmare... is...

The noddy crisply and urgently swung its head-body back and forth, searching its room for signs that it was still dreaming. Broken alarm clocks that had fallen off of the noddy's nightstand before they'd been ringing enough to wake it up piled so high in the front-right corner that they almost touched the ceiling; light-blue nightcaps were stacked semi-neatly next to its bed on the side opposite its nightstand. The white paint on the walls was flaking, revealing the dark-red glow of the rust on the metal foundation, which made it seem like the walls were bleeding. Customer Service was still purple and semi-human-like, as always; he had not transformed into an elephant or a slice of toast. The situation was clearly a reality and not some sort of dream.

"Well, I'll leave you to decide what to do," remarked Customer Service, leaving the room with a false smile and a wave. "We're off for now; buhbye."

The floor started to feel swirly like a blast from Tornado Kirby. The noddy stared up at the ceiling, but it was no better because it was swirly too. It tried standing up, but just fell down again; everything was useless. The whole universe was suddenly spinning in circles and as tiny as a little speck of dust. The noddy felt detached again, like it did when it woke up and everything was dark. All its life, it had operated in part under the assumption that things didn't just disappear, and that Nightmare would always be there for his minions, that Nightmare would always be there to be in charge and tell everyone to sleep in people's pillowcases or to go mess up some poor kid whose family was dissing the big buffoon who sat down at the center of Pop Star calling himself the King. But what was supposed to happen now?

The noddy felt the thumps of several heavily-armed feet echoing across the translucent metal hexagon floors just outside; the echoing thumps vibrated through the building, making it almost feel like the ceiling was going to fall down. What should it do? Nightmare had never gone missing before. Even when that little pink bastard Kirby beat his ass with the Star Rod, he'd managed to come staggering back to Dark Star yet again; sure, his cape was nearly torn off and he was breathing heavily as though it were a burden to even move, but he'd returned. Sir Nightmare couldn't just... disappear like that. That didn't make sense. The noddy thought for a moment that maybe it should just go back to bed. Things were so much more fun in the world of his dreams than here on the _real_ Dark Star, right? The noddy lifted itself off the ground and started to climb up onto its bed, then hesitated about halfway up.

Wait a second; hadn't th'boss said before that he was going to try out Operation Rooftop? Yeah. Yeah, he did.

As the noddy climbed back down and started out the door, the feeling of dizziness left it and was replaced with a sudden impulse to laugh. As it walked down the dimly-lit hall with grungy, pale-green walls, it laughed as deeply as a little noddy could laugh, and as it approached the slimy, rusty door labeled "MAGIC SUPPLIES" in red letters of condensed, formal font, its laugh grew in volume and pitch, approaching hysteria. Geez, they sure don't make monsters too bright nowadays. Seriously, it couldn't believe that it was the _only one_ who'd made the connection.


End file.
